


Here’s the Thing (or, How Emma Swan Learned to Appreciate Football)

by shireness



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Football-flavored Modern AU, Grouchy Anti-Social Emma Swan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 14:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13320291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shireness/pseuds/shireness
Summary: Here’s the thing - she didn’t mean to fall asleep on Killian Jones’ shoulder during the Nolan’s Rose Bowl viewing party.





	Here’s the Thing (or, How Emma Swan Learned to Appreciate Football)

**Author's Note:**

> Here’s the thing - I should be working on the next chapter of But Never Inconstant
> 
> But, here’s the thing - I live in a college football state, and all the hoopla inspired this fic that just wouldn’t go away.
> 
> Enjoy!

Here’s the thing – Emma Swan doesn’t like football.

It’s not for lack of trying now, when she’s an adult. But football will always remind her of men who smell like beer and cigarettes who are quick to anger, and later boys in letter jackets who try to corner her in empty hallways. Emma, for better or worse, can’t move past that.

But here’s the other thing – David _loves_ football. And Emma loves David like the brother she always wanted but never had. So Emma finds herself watching football a lot more than she ever wanted.

David’s the kind of fan, too, where he doesn’t just follow his beloved Patriots (which is, coincidentally, Emma’s hard line on this football nonsense – she’ll watch the games, attend the tailgates and parties, but she refuses to root for the damn Patriots). No, David’s a fan of the _game_. So she’s roped into watching all matter of playoffs and qualifiers and whatever the hell else, because it makes him happy when people come to his viewing parties and makes Mary Margaret even happier when people eat the dips she makes. So Emma keeps showing up and eating finger foods and pretending to really care about the Minnesota Vikings because it makes David happy that she has a team (and Minnesota is at least a place that she has a few pleasant memories of).

Today, though, David seems determined to test her patience with this football nonsense. _Some_ people had to work New Year’s Eve and didn’t get home and into bed until seven in the morning, and _some_ people are fucking exhausted. And don’t give a shit about football. Even if he and Mary Margaret insist that everyone come over for the Rose Bowl.

But if Emma doesn’t show up, Mary Margaret is going to get that face, the sad puppy face, and call to find out where she is and why she can’t come, and Emma is _way_ too tired to deal with that. So she shows up in her warmest sweater and comfiest jeans at 3:41 pm (the closest she’ll ever get to “3:30, on the dot!”) with a six-pack and a determination to make it through two games of football, if only so she can go home and get some damn sleep.

Thankfully, it looks like the evening might shape up to be bearable. There’s enough people present and Emma is late enough that Mary Margaret isn’t able to fret over her the way she might usually, so she’s able to make it to the kitchen with relatively little fuss, dropping off her beer offering in the fridge and loading up a plate with all manner of finger food. If she has to be here, at least Mary Margaret made her famous seafood dip. There’s a minor hiccup in finding a seat – Graham and Ruby are already all over each other in her usual, favorite armchair – but there’s still plenty of room on the loveseat and sectional. David’s college roommate, Kristoff, has burrowed in on one side of the larger couch with his girlfriend, and Emma’s coworker Liam looks to be making eyes at the girlfriend’s sister, so Emma picks the loveseat instead. Less chance of flying pheromones. It’s not her chair, but it’s a comfortable enough set-up. It’ll do just fine.

Things go relatively well, albeit somewhat drowsily, until the end of the first quarter, when _he_ shows up. Killian Jones. Liam’s brother. Mr. Tall, Dark and Arrogant. Literature teacher at Storybrooke Academy with Mary Margaret, relocated from England six months prior, who Emma has been avoiding ever since. It’s not exactly anything against him – though he does seem slightly full of himself for Emma’s taste – but when Mary Margaret, damn her, hears the words “new in town”, she apparently thinks that means “open to set-ups”. And Emma is her favorite target. Sure, Mary Margaret’s meddling ways may have paired Ashley Herman up with her now-husband, but they also resulted for Emma in the worst first date _ever_ with Walsh Ozwald. As such, Emma has been attempting to avoid large group gatherings as often as possible since school started and Killian entered M’s radar, in an effort to avoid being roped into anymore dates. They still see each other, but only when she absolutely can’t avoid it without being rude.

Still, Emma suspects Mary Margaret planned this all, because when Killian walks in with a bottle of rum in hand and a grocery bag of chips hanging from his prosthetic, _conveniently_ the only spot left to sit is on the loveseat next to Emma. An entire room with a massive sectional and an armchair in addition to the loveseat, and somehow the only available seat is next to her. Of course. At least he’s polite about it, murmuring a quick “Sorry to intrude, Swan,” in response to her grumbling. And at least he offers to fill up her plate again because Emma is far too burrowed into the cushions to get her own refills.

They’re coexisting. It’s fine. Football is still boring and she still wants to go home, but things could be a lot worse.

\------

Here’s the thing – despite her best efforts, she can barely keep her eyes open at halftime. Which is probably just as well, because the halftime show is confusing at best. Next to her, Killian is squinting at the screen like he can force it to make sense.

“What the bloody hell are they supposed to be doing?” he demands, and Emma is apparently far too tired to suppress her snort. “Can anyone actually tell what that shape is supposed to be? I didn’t think marching bands dabbled in modern art for their formations.”

Emma tries to form a sentence to throw back at him, but at this point, she’s too tired to properly enunciate, and it seems unlikely that he actually understood her replied “They don’t.”

She’s not paying attention to the TV very well anyways. Really, would it be that big a deal to close her eyes, just for a few minutes?

\------

Here’s the thing – Emma didn’t mean to fall asleep. It’ s with no small amount of confusion that she struggles back to consciousness amidst the sound of cheers.

She was asleep. So she should be home in her bed, where it quiet and there’s no cheering. Slowly, the circumstances of her evening come back. David and Mary Margaret’s. Football. Horrible halftime shows and closing her eyes for a moment and –

And oh _shit_ , her head is definitely laying on something a lot more bony than a pillow.

It’s that thought that finally propels her eyelids open to see the players on the screen wearing different colors altogether. Jesus, how long was she out?

All she knows for certain is that she was sleeping with her head on Killian Jones’s shoulder – a man she barely knows, she might add – for God only knows how long. The realization makes her stiffen in panic and embarrassment, only to feel a gentle pressure on her upper arm, and God, is he actually holding her? Could this get any worse?

Apparently, it can, because Jones seems to have mistaken her sudden tensing as the sign of a bad dream, whispering into her hair that “It’s alright, love, you’re fine, shh. You’re at the Nolan’s.”

But despite his comforting words, she’s scooting away down the loveseat as fast as she can, trying to put some distance between their bodies. Unfortunately, that leads to an even more concerned look on his face.

“Swan? Are you alright?”

Somehow, she manages to nod and throw out a hand to keep him on the other side of the loveseat. “Yep, fine. Just startled.” After a moment of quick thinking and plotting proverbial escape routes, her mind finally connects to her mouth as she stands. “I’m just… going to get some water.”

And then she flees. Not her finest moment, but there it is.

Because here’s the thing – for just a moment, before her fight or flight had kicked in, lying there and using him as a pillow – _she had liked it._        

\------

Here’s the thing – Killian Jones isn’t really _that_ bad. Hasn’t been for a while. It’s just that when Mary Margaret first introduced them Emma _knew_ it was leading to a set-up, and Emma wanted none of that. And then Jones had made some comment about welcoming committees and and how he was sure she’d give him “the _warmest_ of welcomes” while offering her a salacious wiggle of his eyebrows, and that was that. Emma decided that she didn’t like him, wanted nothing to do with him.

Since then, she’s gotten to see a bit more of the man, what he’s really like. Yes, he puts on a cocky front, but she’s also seen the way he scratches behind his ear when he’s bashful or nervous, how his attempt at winking is more like a weird facial spasm, and how he flirts outrageously with Granny because it makes her blush, even as she scolds him and tries to swat at him with a dish towel. He’s not a bad guy. She just doesn’t want or need anyone in her life right now, especially after the disaster that is her past love life, and it’s easier to continue wanting nothing to do with Killian than dealing with anything else he may make her feel.

That’s why the Rose Bowl incident is so disconcerting. She laid there on his shoulder for two hours, let him drape an arm around her shoulders so they would both be more comfortable, let him protect her when she was vulnerable and her guard was down, and she _allowed_ it, even unconsciously. In those two hours, she allowed him to get closer than she ever planned, and Emma isn’t sure how she feels about it.

So Emma does what she does best, and tries to avoid him even more that she did before.

\------

Here’s the thing – it’s hard to avoid someone when you’re both invited to a mutual friend’s viewing party for the college national championship game.

If Emma was stronger, she would have just stayed home, declined the invitation, but while Emma considers herself to be very much the badass, Mary Margaret’s cooking is her weakness. Emma is about one step away from setting up a religion centered around Mary Margaret’s shrimp dip, and will not miss it for anything – including for the sake of avoiding Killian Jones.

She is, thankfully, able to snag her armchair at the beginning of the night, choosing to forget Graham and Ruby’s canoodling the week prior. And this week, she’s had the day off – no worries about falling asleep in the middle of the game and making a fool of herself again.

Unfortunately, Killian seems less on board with her plan to avoid him. There’s plenty of people in the Nolan’s living room that he knows, but instead, he singles her out, grinning and coming to sit on the corner of the sectional closest to her chair. “Swan!” he calls, like some sort of excitable puppy. It’s simultaneously adorable and infuriating.

At least her scowl seems to throw him off, shifting in his seat and reaching for his ear, like he’s thinking better of his earlier enthusiasm. His next sentence comes out more like a stammer, much to Emma’s amusement. “Can… can I get you anything? Another beer, more chips, more, more… I don’t know, more dip?”

Her negative response is terse, at best. He knows it, she knows it. Again, not her finest hour. But the idea of acting otherwise, forming some sort of connection with Jones, is slightly terrifying, so she tries to use her words and tone to establish a distance.

Not that it stops him. He’s courteous and attentive the whole game, offering to get her drinks or food and trying to engage her in conversation by asking questions about how the game is played. Despite all his best efforts, though, her replies remain limited to a few words.

It could be nice, she’ll admit, if she allowed herself to enjoy the fact that a man was paying her attentions. But encouraging Killian would lead to more than just an annoyingly smug Mary Margaret – it could lead to affection and attachment and disappointment when he’d inevitably leave and probably break her heart in the process. So she keeps her distance.

She finally leaves at nearly midnight, with no small amount of relief to be out of his presence.

\-------

Here’s the thing – Killian Jones is nothing if not persistent.

Emma expects something of an out of sight, out of mind thing to happen – that the only way she’ll see Killian is if she actively seeks him out, and she sure as hell isn’t going to do that. If she just stays away from him long enough, this whole thing will blow over. They’ll all forget about the sleeping incident, and Emma can forget about any… feelings it might have stirred up.

But she starts the whole thing off wrong by running into him at Granny’s on Tuesday morning. He must hear her drink order, because he starts sauntering into the station on his way to school in the mornings with a hot chocolate for her – whipped cream and cinnamon on top. The next week, she walks into the diner to find that her lunch has already been paid for – courtesy of one Killian Jones. Arriving at the station for an evening shift, there’s a daffodil on her desk in a small vase, just like her tattoo. David, Graham, and Liam are all clearly in on this too, if conveniently timed gifts and their refusal to look her in the eye when she asks are anything to go by. After complaining about her back the entirety of a Wednesday, there’s a little vibrating back massager on her desk the next day with another flower – a colorful daisy, this time. She mentions to Liam one afternoon that she’s planning to watch “The Princess Bride” on her day off, and lo and behold, there’s a copy of the book on her desk by the weekend.

In the meantime, he keeps up with his attempts to draw her into conversation over the course of the month, with everything from comments about the weather and his curriculum to questions about her week and the calls she’s had to respond to – the latter of which she’s sure he’s already heard about from Liam. At the beginning, she mostly answers with hums and grunts and one word answers. By the end of the month, she’s willing to give him a little more – better answers about how her week has been, asking how his students are, actually warmly thanking him when he brings her her drink in the morning.

Emma wouldn’t say that she likes him. But she will admit that when he doesn’t show up for three mornings in a row, she worries, even after Liam tells her that Killian is stuck at home with the flu.

Mary Margaret tries to interrogate her on the matter, but all Emma can really do is shrug and tell her, “I don’t know.” Because she doesn’t know. Emma isn’t looking to be in a relationship, but there’s something about Killian Jones and how earnest he is in all his actions towards her.

(She doesn’t notice the blur of blue eyes and black leather at the door to Granny’s while she and Mary Margaret are talking. Maybe her answer would have been different if she had.)

\------

Here’s the thing – as much as Emma feels like she’s doing as much to encourage him as she’s comfortable with, she’s noticed him getting progressively more nervous this past week, leading up to the Super Bowl party at the Nolan’s. She probably should have expected some kind of action, but it’s still a surprise when she’s barely set the chips on the kitchen counter before he appears at her side, scratching behind his ear again in that nervous way he has.

“A word, Swan?”

She goes. It would be rude not to, for one, but this nervous and unsure Killian is really off-putting as well, and she’d like to get to the bottom of the matter, or at least let him speak his piece. Emma expects him to beat around the bush a bit once they’re alone on the patio, what with that flowery way it seems he can’t help speaking with, but instead, he jumps right to the point.

“Would you like me to stop?”

It’s a shock. All she can think to do in response is dumbly stare at him, barely able to stutter out a word of surprise. “What?”

“Would you like me to stop?” he repeats. “I’ve been doing all this for weeks and still can’t properly tell whether you’re enjoying my efforts. And I know you were somewhat avoiding me at first and less than enthusiastic, but David and Liam both assured me I should be patient, and I thought you were enjoying my presence a little bit more, but I heard you with Mary Margaret the other day and –” He finally pauses for breath. “Would you like me to stop?”

She could be brave. She _should_ be brave. But instead, she just shrugs again, and hands him another “I don’t know.”

To his credit, he just looks at her in that thoughtful, patient way, like he knows her hesitance isn’t about their interactions the past couple weeks. “What don’t know you about?”

It’s silent for several long moments and she can visibly see him deflating, losing hope that she’ll give him a real answer and let him in if only a little. Finally, she blurts out, “Do you really want this?”

Understandably, Killian just looks confused. It’s a bit of an odd thing to ask, after all the questioning and pacing he’s just done that should say he’s very committed. Emma’s mind finally catches up to her mouth, leaving her to continue. “Do you really want this, or is this just because Mary Margaret and Ruby probably made some comments while I was asleep about how cute we looked together, and pressured you into it?”

He’s already shaking his head. “Oh, Emma, no, of course not –” but she plows right on.

“Because I’m not usually like that. I’m difficult to be with and not a particularly good girlfriend. I’m not big on PDA and I –” but it’s his turn to interrupt, this time with a smile.

“Oh, Emma, of course not. I may have acted like an arrogant ass when we first met but… I liked you. I _like_ you. Not because you fell asleep on my shoulder and the Devious Duo nearly melted – though you were very cute, drooling on me and trying to burrow in further like I was a proper pillow – but because you’re brilliant and absolutely badass and sarcastic and don’t take shit from anyone. Not to mention, you’re the kind of beautiful that makes a man think in poetry.” The ear scratch is back again, but the grin is continuing as well, and that’s what she’s choosing to focus on. At least until he seems to remember how their conversation started, and it slips off his face again. “But I swear, Emma, if I’m irritating you, or you don’t feel the same way, I’ll leave you be and –”

But he never gets a chance to finish his statement, as Emma grabs his collar and hauls him in for a kiss.

That ought to clear things up.

\-------

Here’s the thing – Emma Swan still doesn’t like football. It’s long and violent and there’s way too many different ways to get points for her to possibly keep track of them all.

But here’s the other thing – none of that matters quite so much when she gets to spend the Super Bowl curled up in the Nolan’s armchair with her boyfriend of almost a year, making fun of the commercials instead of watching the game.

(And if David or Mary Margaret complain about all the PDA, well, this is their fault anyways.)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, and I hope you guys enjoyed it!
> 
> Please think about leaving kudos, comments, etc. - I love getting a response, it makes me want to keep turning out more stuff!


End file.
